Evolution, Great Big Sea and getting Lost

The most popular band in the land overhauls its website, the dean of evolution gets the full-on literary tribute, and an easy tip to help your deck plants flourish this summer ... all that, and more, in this week's hop, skip and jump around the web.

Great Big Sea

www.greatbigsea.com/

A sign of a healthy website is that it reinvents itself every now and again.

Surf's up - The most popular band in the land overhauls its website, the dean of evolution gets the full-on literary tribute, and an easy tip to help your deck plants flourish this summer ... all that, and more, in this week's hop, skip and jump around the web.

Great Big Sea

www.greatbigsea.com/

A sign of a healthy website is that it reinvents itself every now and again.

The GBS site unveiled its makeover last Friday, to herald the upcoming album "Fortune's Favour." The album is now out for more than a month, but you can amuse yourself aplenty on the site, which has a new player (stream a half-dozen songs while you surf), some new social-media functions and various other features. Old favourites are still in place, including the forums, where hardcore fans meet up.

Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

darwin-online.org.uk/

Next year will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of the scientists who truly changed how we look at the world, and ourselves. Get a jump on the festivities with a site that pulls together everything Darwin wrote, which is no mean feat.

Pop Bottle Irrigation

www.yougrowgirl.com/garden/dripsystem.php

If you have outdoor plants and a plastic Pepsi bottle kicking around, you can solve two problems at once. Instead of dropping the bottle into recycling (or, worse, the garbage can), making a few snips can give you a tool to keep your plants moist during the summer days to come.

Lost Spoilers

spoilerslost.blogspot.com/

In our house, I'm alone in following the TV show Lost, but I'm certainly not alone out there in cyberspace, where there are, I don't know, a billion sites picking apart the show that raises two questions for every one it resolves. While I like being surprised, I'll cop to getting a buzz from this well-informed blog that tracks where the next dozen or two plot turns might lead.

Sandwiches

www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches

A couple of months ago, Esquire magazine ran a feature on great sandwiches, and asked readers for their ideas. Apparently, every reader had a different idea on the ultimate sandwich. Here's the central page, which is sliced, buttered and stuffed with an endless variety of sandwiches. I bet you can't scroll through the list without wanting to head to the kitchen for a snack. If you're planning on a road trip, take notes; the suggestions here are fixed to particular restaurants, diners, etc., that serve up wonders on a plate.

Animated gifs

www.nicovideo.jp/img/tpl/head/icon /nico/

Ah, the animated gif. The Graphics Interchange Format has been a staple on the web for years. Who, after all, can forget the burning fires that dotted many a personal web page around 1995? The animated gif is still a favourite; you don't need any plug-ins or special software to make them work on even the most basic of web pages. This particular page consists of nothing but animated gifs: row upon upon row of them, all fit into tiny squares, each endlessly repeating.

Hansard

www.assembly.nl.ca/business/ default.htm

When the House of Assembly is in session, Hansard makes for some of the best reading in town. Well, for some people! Get your political fix here, and keep up with legislative business, too.

Type the Alphabet

playfreeonlinegames.eu/playonline/typethealphabet.html

Not all games involve zapping aliens, bouncing balls or cute animals. This is a twist on hand-eye co-ordination, and rewards those who can actually do one important function of daily life: type. See how long it takes to type the alphabet in sequence. I was humbled, and I can touch-type. (Allowing for a few boo-boos, that is.)

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. E-mail: surf@thetelegram.com. Read past Surf's Up columns and daily updates at his blog: johngushue.typepad.com.

HBG

Expert Bloggers

Quick question - 03/31/2015

A Corner Brook woman was upset recently when she had her seal skin purse confiscated by customs officials when entering the United States — she was unaware of a U.S. ban on seal product entering that country. Are you aware of the ban?